Friday, December 10, 2010

[ALT: Ever notice how there aren't as many thunderstorms now as there were when you were a kid? Much like 'the shuffle on my MP3 player has a bias', this is occasionally true but universally believed. Brains are so interesting!]

Man, I get distracted for a couple days and Randy goes all shitty on us again. Hello, Randy! I'm glad you're back to your old self again.

Not much to say about the weather comic. It's a really boring observation--hey, ever notice how sometimes the weather breaks up around you? I think the joke is supposed to be that this actually happens because the weather people are stalking you and feed you false information or something? The alt text here bothers me, because I'm pretty sure "universally believed" is not, in fact, remotely accurate. Randy needs to stop making observations that aren't accurate and pretending he's found some fascinating insight into the workings of the human brain.

And then we have the tic-tac-toe comic! This is incredibly, incredibly boring. We get it, we've solved tic-tac-toe. It's an incredibly simple game. This poster is not visually interesting, intellectually interesting, or funny. It's a complete waste of time. It's also not the best way to present this data--it's not really very easy to read.

I hope Randy does more graphs of presenting information we intuitively grasp in a hard-to-read chart form. This could be a lot of fun! Maybe he can do a map of the local park, and note that the sidewalks do not present an optimal way to get from point A to point B. Maybe then someone will finally love him!

Too afraid to go to the forums for these.

UPDATE! A helpful reader offers this link, which is basically identical to Randy's comic in every way.

The tic tac toe comic is so laughably illegible that I actually UNlearned how to play from trying to understand it, and like everyone else older than ten, I already understood optimal tic tac toe.

"Your opponent has to be in idiot" is not a winning strategy unless you play against Randall's average fan, I guess.

I was thinking about the Tower of Hanoi while bored out of my skull last week, and thought, "You know what would make such a shitty XKCD that I'm surprised it doesn't already exist? A graph showing the relationship between the number of 'discs' and the number of moves required to solve it."

I can't be the only one who finds the alt-text really patronising. I mean, I find it INTERESTING, sure. But "Brains are so interesting!" complete with the exclamation mark is the kind of phony enthusiasm that a teacher might use while addressing a class of idiots. It's just not how anybody would ever speak.

I don't always buy the "unrealistic dialogue" criticism, think it's slapped around a bit too much on this site, but that's a prime example if ever there was one - and it's just him expressing his inner feelings. Maybe he just speaks really bizarrely.

@12:13I agree and it also wasn't even very relevent. I can think of many much greater examples that show how interesting and amazing the human brain is...

It kinda reminded me of when he made that comic about jokes in the past as though he was a genious for just realising this. When not only is it commen sense but there are also also unlimited proofs most obvious being shakespear.

...wow, Randall LITERALLY (not using the word ironically here) copied that tic tac toe fractal chart. Except for the shitty line work, and the fact that he automatically chose to start with the X in the upper right square instead of doing it the same as he did O (interestingly, the animation on the link anonymous 9:00 posted has X in the upper right corner when it starts).

I feel like someone linked this in the other comment section, but I couldn't exactly find it, so here is a link of what Randall's chart is trying to do, but better:

I solved Tic-Tac-Toe when I was around ten, and I don't even have particularly refined spatial reasoning skills. Try again when you solve *chess,* numbnuts.

Nate, it's too bad you weren't being "ironic" about your use of the word "literally," because if you hadn't inserted that parenthetical you probably wouldn't have come off as a fucking dipshit who doesn't know what "literally" means.

But don't worry, your not as bad as the fuckwit who decided to compare these idle doodles to the Holocaust. Feeling nice and edgy in your lonely little corner? I certainly hope so.

Haha who is this Sarge and whats he doing on the internet where everything is spelled wrong with bad grammer and everything is compared to the holocaust. Also i think 8:35 was being ironic. Ever heard comparing minor griveneces with huge global disastrous events for comic effect? Might not be very funny but there you go...

Your all dumasses. The holocaust was a thing where people died jeeze. Also I am the greatest chess player in my class, so suck that you conformist neurotypicals. I even mastered Tic Toe at the age of 10.

Guys why are we expecting an army officer to both have the astounding spatial reasoning skills to solve a game as horribly complicated as tic-tac-toe at the age of 10, and the intellectual agility understand the punchline of anon 8:35.

I mean really clearly this is the best and the brightest of the american military right here folks.

All i know is that if i had been in the holocaust i would be happy Sarge was here to whiteknight me. And for the record while i am desperatly lonely i don't regard a holocaust reference as 'edgy'.So go fuck yourself.

Nate: I wasn't criticizing grammar, I was criticizing lexical semantics. Get your head out of your ass.

Um, I hadn't posted again since the last post with my name on it. I don't know why you think I was that anon. I pretty much own up to my posts no matter how stupid they are. But have fun pretending that you figured me out?

Sarge, it's also too bad you apparently know fuck-all about this site because it's been a running joke for a few weeks now where someone will say "This comic LITERALLY made me bleed out of my eyes and puke out my intestines!" due to a cuddlefish using the word "literally" incorrectly. The reason for my statement in parentheses was to indicate I was not using the word ironically as many people here do from time to time.

Also geez getting mad about Holocaust jokes? You might want to stay off the internet. I hear you can even see naked girls on it! Wouldn't want to destroy your innocent and pure mind after all.

"Though I guess the joke's on me, because why the FUCK would I use the word "catachresis" around a fuckstick like you?"

Nate's use of "literally" was fine. He could have left the word out and lost no meaning, as his qualifier suggests, but it's nothing to attack him over.

However, "lexical semantics" is redundant. I suppose you thought it would make you sound smarter, though. Like using the word "catachresis" and splitting hairs on the difference between grammar and semantics. Your specialized knowledge (which I can tell you is not as deep as you seem to believe) does not give you the right to hold judgment over the intellects of others.

Joshua, if you're wondering why no one likes you (and I'm just making an educated guess based on the admittedly tiny evidence I have of your character), in the "real world" and on the Internet, it's because of shit like this. It's not everyone else; it's you. Learn something about interpersonal relations, check your ego, and have a nice day.

Did you guys know that you can make yourself seem "credible" if you add in swearwords and make sure to offend every participant in the discussion? It's all about making sure everyone has to defend themselves, because if they attack you they're admitting their flaws, and if they defend it, then you are inherently flawless!

Wait, you mean you guys don't want to be my friends? Well, SHIT, I thought I was making such a good first impression.

Believe it or not, Nicholas, People who make Holocaust jokes (or "fucksticks" from now on) did not win a competition guaranteeing them the right to make such jokes without being called "Fucksticks." In fact, if these Fucksticks are clever enough to come up with a holocaust joke, I would think they're clever enough to defend themselves without needing you, Nicholas, to White Knight them on the XKCDSucks comments.

And it's cute that you guys think someone using the word "literally" incorrectly is funny enough to be a running "joke." Who knew the frequenters of XKCDsucks wouldn't appreciate someone criticizing their sense of humor.

and *Nicholas,* thank you for the advice on my interpersonal relationships. I can only reciprocate: If you're wondering why no one likes YOU, in real life or on the internet, it's probably because of your shitty fucking beard.

Anyway it was one of those things that you kind of had to be there for. You don't find it funny, that's fine. Inside jokes are kind of like that. My parenthetical statement was a note that I wasn't using the word "LITERALLY" in the joke way. I don't see why it's something to get mad over.

Oh good golly gosh, another shitty awkward breakup comic! With GRAPHS, to boot!

Also you guyses remakes are HILARIOUS. I especially like the goatkcd one. I wish goatkcd would actually break up the monotony by putting the goatse in a different panel where appropriate, but what can you do...

I'm pretty sure that randall doesn't label his axes consistently. I could be wrong- maybe it's just because he doesn't use a ruler and his graphs turn out looking like a chimpanzee with cereberal palsy was trying to do maths.

Literally is perfectly acceptable as a metaphorical qualifier. You don't have to mean a word in its (lol) literal sense to use it. I really can't stand people who get on their high horses about it and act like they're the fucking guardians of language (or lexical semantics), when all you're doing is being a small-minded cunt with no real eye for how language (or lexical semantics) work, and have worked for millennia.

Rnadall Munroe? Self-aware? HA! I could believe if he said instead "No, I just think I can do better than someone who makes graphs like these!"

This was... bland. This sort of baint-and-switch joke is actually pretty jarring for me. Especially when the characters talk something like this:

Funny one makes the build-up statement for the joke.Straight one: "Oh, because ?"Funny one: "No, because !"*rimshot*

I'll give it to him, there was no PPD here and he actually showed the build-up, but the format of the joke itself bothers me. And the floating heads that only get worse! But, seriously, I'll chalk this up to personal taste, I just don't enjoy these jokes.

"Funny one makes the build-up statement for the joke.Straight one: "Oh, because <common interpretation of the statement expected by the reader>?"Funny one: "No, because <wacky interpretation of that same statement>!"*rimshot*"

"Literally is perfectly acceptable as a metaphorical qualifier. You don't have to mean a word in its (lol) literal sense to use it."

Perhaps not, but "literal" is necessarily an exception in that it means, "This next part is NOT metaphorical." It's because words can be used in so many ways that something like "literally" needs to have one and only one meaning.

"He was on fire." <- a figure of speech saying someone was doing really well"He was literally on fire." <- this means that the person is BURNING

How are you going to convey that the person needs to be extinguished if "literally" is just a synonym for "really"?

Re 833: It's a shame...things had largely been getting better of late. Cringe-worthy exceptions, of course, but...this just makes me want to vomit. We've seen this joke before, Randy. Using the same jokes isn't allowed unless you use it in a novel way or thoroughly subvert it, and tweaking the punchline a bit isn't acceptable to me.

833 has got to be self-parody. I know, I know. You generally won't go broke betting on Randall's lack of self awareness, but this is an exception. The density of obliviousness required for 833 not to be self-parody would create a black-hole of clueless and rip the fabric of space time.

833 has the same setup/joke as 701 (with genders reversed). 701 has a graph with the axes unlabeled.

Is there a single graph xkcd that actually labels the axes properly? I can't find one. Most do have a label on the axes, but aside from ones with Google results, I haven't seen any that have the units on the both axes (there are a few that give the x-axis units). I realize the Google ones actually have real data behind them, and the rest are just made up for the joke, but I'm not even asking for real numbers. Just "low"/"high" would be good. Lord knows the media loves to present graphs where the axes lack units, which I would say is a worse sin than not explaining the difference between a million and a billion, but apparently Randall is OK with this kind of innumeracy.

I think that finals week is really kicking the shit out of the xkcd hate blogs. Fucking college students, its going to get even worse when they get into the real world. Unless you're Randall Monroe, then you can be a t-shirt selling man-child for life.

Capn, I think Randall thinks he is sorta like Peter Pan, and he is just trying to bring some magic into people's lives, k? And by "bring some magic" we obviously mean "drag them away from their comfortable lives into a world of for-real pirates lacking any form of social infrastructure". Also he refuses to grow up and keeps hanging out with younger kids despite being born, like, 10 years before them. Maybe that is too many years, maybe it is not enough who knows.

Bluh. An imitation of a hacker that apparently thinks a blog is a threat to Randall Munroe's business...

Okay, let's lay down the big picture here. This blog has been running for two years now, I think. XKCD fandom is as strong now as it was before, especially with the addition of high school nerds. What I mean is: if you think we make a difference to XKCD, you're way insecure about the quality of the comic.

Also, I just saw now the notices on Google Reader and, if I really know reader as well as I think I do, it'll stay there forever. Here's something:

"Way to insult the one webcomic community that knows most about programming/hacking/etc."

Yes. So good hackers that the site didn't stay down. So good at programming all he did was use Wordpress to... write posts! OMYGOD, so much l337n322!

...BLARG.

PS.: I personally prefer my first theory that the author of redux suffered a breakdown of Dave Sim proportions.

"Way to insult the one webcomic community that knows most about programming/hacking/etc."

Lessee. Gawker called 4chan a bunch of script kiddies or something. Some hackers calling themselves Gnosis took all of Gawker's passwords and put them in a torrent where they said something like "see, we're not all script kiddies".

Then some script kiddie xkcd fanboi downloads the password file, and finds that somebody associated with xkcdsuxredux used the same password on Gawker and the blog. Script kiddies like xkcd.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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